I saw this as someone’s sig so I can’t take credit for it but thought I’d borrow it here just to help make a point. Whether one class is OP or not often depends on what you’re comparing it too. I believe Blizzard did state that they will not be making every class equal. Unfortunatly, while this policy is fine for PvE where our different roles adds synergy (in good groups) in PvP and especially 1:1 PvP the discrepancies in damage output between classes are much more noticeable. An ideal PvP environment (for me at least) is one where the player’s abilities play a bigger role than gear or class. I can’t say this is true for Arena as it stands now.

A change to the mechanics of Shred would help. Make it work in front, but for low damage and less energy (like 45 energy base cost) but then if you are behind the target, it uses 15 more energy and does normal shred damage. Then you can make use of the RnT talent, AND you’ll be able to build combo points using shred.

This would require a small change to the Shredding attacks talent too (otherwise shred would be 27 (45-18) energy in front — too OP). Just let the talent reduce the Energy cost for being behind.

Bada bing, bada boom

But we’re at a situation right now where a 5% difference in DPS done is a substantial number of numerical damage. We’re not talking differences of 50-100 dps, we’re talking differences of 250-500 dps or so, even up to 1k.

Those are massive differences.

Likewise, in PvE, the differences in DPS can be as much as 2000DPS from different gear levels. Massive differences.

The problem is the DPS inflation, has made balancing too reliant on “compound interest” so to speak, making minor changes have huge effects, making balance impossible.

Actually, at this point, all the 3.1 changes are not on the arena servers, so if they tuned druids too high with the early 3.1 changes, that wouldn’t be reflected on the arena servers.

I’m curious. We talk about balancing the classes and tweaking abilities and whatnot on the PTR in the area of PVP. Call me crazy, but wouldn’t it be equally beneficial to look at a controlled environment to truly get a sense of where a class’s level is where PVP is involved? Controlled, like, say, the currently going Arena tourney? Given that everyone can make a character with the BEST gear available (PVP, sure, but still top notch) I’d be interested in seeing if abilities are really over or underpowered without regards to the gear and seeing if it’s just lack of class mastery on part of the player.

I’m not saying ignore the PTR data, but I can’t really draw conclusions until I can see data from a controlled situation. Granted, there is still human accountability in the Tournament, with a level playing field we can truly gauge what abilities should or shouldn’t be messed with. THEN, we can start taking into account other aspects of gameplay, like gear selection and environmental situations (i.e. group composition and buffs, boss debuffs, etc).

I mean, is it just me? I really feel – especially as a newer player – I need more data! Heh.